SAP has announced three new SAP solutions for the Internet of Things (IoT), supporting the Middle East’s fast-paced Networked Economy and growing Smart Cities. The new solutions include the SAP Predictive Maintenance and Service solution, SAP Connected Logistics software and the SAP Manufacturing Execution application, leveraging the SAP HANA Cloud Platform for application enablement and advanced capabilities such as in-memory computing, predictive analytics and complex event processing.

As part of its continued commitment to enable innovation in this space, SAP has announced the addition of 500 incremental dedicated developers to support various IoT initiatives. “IoT will be the key enabler of industry scenarios and of innovations in the digital economy. It is converging our digital and physical worlds, which will spur new products and services, and even change business models,” says Bernd Leukert, member of the executive board of SAP SE, products & innovation.

“IoT has the potential to dramatically improve responsiveness of businesses, reimagine customer experience and open up new opportunities and brand new business models such as move from sell-to-service based models. SAP customers that have already implemented IoT solutions have seen considerable improvement in asset utilisation and higher business process efficiency and helped address operational costs,” adds Leukert.

SAP solutions for the IoT are powered by the SAP HANA Cloud Platform, which is the core application development and enablement platform and provides the ability to generate real-time insights from sensor data and advanced capabilities such as in-memory computing, geo-spatial, telematics, predictive analytics and complex event processing. In addition, the SAP HANA Cloud Platform offers open APIs that allow third-party providers to develop IoT applications.

SAP Predictive Maintenance and Service

Built on the SAP HANA Cloud Platform, SAP Predictive Maintenance and Service is planned to deliver deep unified insight by integrating operations and analytics on a single platform. To support innovation for continuous performance improvement, the solution is envisioned to help optimise the value of hard-won business and technical data as well as data from unstructured documents from various sources. The solution intends to help assess historic and sensor data to assist users in predicting a malfunction before it occurs to help prevent a negative impact on profits. Additionally, the SAP AR Service Technician mobile app empowers field technicians to complete work orders automatically generated by SAP Predictive Maintenance and Service in a hands-free environment using smart glass.

SAP Connected Logistics

Built on SAP HANA Cloud Platform, SAP Connected Logistics is planned to allow logistics hub operators and others to monitor traffic towards and within a hub and facilitate communication between involved parties including those that do not have a direct business relationship. Furthermore, the software is planned to offer integration to backend transportation management systems, and lean dispatching capabilities for logistics service providers that do not have a sophisticated backend solution in place. SAP Connected Logistics customers can also use the recently announced AR warehouse picker mobile app that leverages wearable technology such as smart glass devices for a complete hands free operation, helping to eliminate the need for handheld scanners.